I am a Burmese exile taking a near-permanent refuge in New York and Sydney. Here are my essays about Burma and anything else I feel like writing about. And posting the articles I like from selected sites. Bridging Burma to the world this Blog is more of a Politically-Oriented Literary Blog than a Plain News Blog or a Sophisticated Thoughts Blog.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Kayla Mueller: US Nun Gang-Raped & Killed By ISIS

Kayla Mueller Refused to Deny Christ
Despite Being Gang-Raped and Brutally Tortured by ISIS, Ex-Hostage Says. In
September 2016, a group of escaped ISIS sex slaves finally revealed the true
fate of Kayla Mueller -- the 26-year-old American aid worker in Syria whom ISIS
had reported dead more than a year ago.

Her former fellow captives said Mueller had "refused to deny Jesus
Christ despite being repeatedly gang-raped and tortured." In February
2015, ISIS claimed their captive had been killed during a Jordanian airstrike
and sent photos of her dead body in a white burial shroud, apparently as a sign
of respect.

One former sex slave said that Mueller
"put others before herself," and once even refused a chance to escape
with the other girls because she thought her American appearance would stand
out and endanger the others.

Kayla Mueller was a 26-year-old
American Christian aid worker in Syria. The Islamic State abducted her, and
repeatedly raped and tortured her, then claimed that she was killed during a
Jordanian airstrike.

Below, Mueller is shown before her
enslavement and death (left), and during her captivity (right), taken from an
ISIS propaganda video.

Kayla With her Syrian Boyfriend Omar Alkhani with whom she went to Syria
and was kidnapped together by ISIS in Aleppo, Syria. But they let him go free.

Four former hostages who were held by
the Islamic State terror group at an abandoned oil refinery in Syria in 2014
have revealed that Kayla Mueller, the Christian aid worker who was slain in IS
captivity last year, refused to deny Jesus Christ despite being repeatedly
raped and tortured.

Frida Saide of Sweden and Patricia
Chavez of Peru and Belgium, who were held alongside 26-year-old Mueller in the
oil refinery, said that despite what Mueller was forced to suffer through, she
remained steadfast in her Christian faith, The Associated Press reports.

Chavez noted that Mueller acted like a
big sister to the other captured girls, looking to keep up their spirits
despite the grim situation they were in. "They would scream at her and
they would, you know, blame her for everything that America has done in the
world," Saide said, according to AP. "She was amazing. She was a
really strong girl," Chavez said.

Mueller's family in Arizona received news of her death in February 2015,
after IS sent photos of her dead body in a white burial shroud, supposedly as a
sign of respect. The humanitarian worker is believed to have been married off
to a top IS official during her captivity. The jihadist group claimed that
Mueller, who was captured in 2013 after leaving a hospital in Syria, had been
killed during a Jordanian airstrike on one of its targets.

Muller's strong Christian faith was
evident in her letters to her family, where she explained that faith gave her
courage. "I remember mom always telling me that all in all in the end the
only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where, in
every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator b/c literally
there was no else ... + by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled
in freefall," she wrote in one of her letters.

Other former sex slaves who escaped IS
captivity have also said that Mueller put others before herself, and at one
point even refused the chance to escape with the other girls, because she
thought her American appearance could put the others in danger.

Kathleen Day, a campus minister at
Northern Arizona University, where Mueller studied, praised the girls who
escaped IS for sharing Mueller's testimony. "These young women and hostages
were all alone," Day told AP. "They had no power. They had no voice.
They had no money yet they stayed steady in their compassion and outreach to
others."

Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of the slain humanitarian worker,
are meanwhile still waiting on President Obama to honor a pledge to make a
donation to the foundation created around their daughter, focused on her
commitment to serve the needy. "The president could have been a hero, but
he chose not to," Carl Mueller told ABC News.

A White House official responded in a
statement by suggesting that Obama will still help out Kayla's Hands. "The
president will continue to support the goals of the organization in different
ways, including by making a donation," as pledged to the Mueller family, the
official said.

A 16-year-old Yazidi girl who was used
as a slave by Islamic State terror group leader Abu bakr al-Baghdadi has
described the savage beatings and rapes she and other women, including U.S.
hostage Kayla Mueller, suffered at the hands of the jihadists.

The Yazidi girl, using the name Zeinat,
revealed in a CNN interview that she met Mueller when both were forced to serve
al-Baghdadi at his home in Raqqa, Syria. "He treated us so badly,"
Zeinat said. "He would always tell us: Forget your father and your
brothers. We have killed them. And we have married off your mothers and
sisters. Forget them."

She
said that all the captives were forced to watch beheading videos, which IS
members used to warn them about what will happen if they try to escape or
refuse to convert to Islam. In one failed attempted escape, the Yazidi girl and
others with her were beaten savagely by al-Baghdadi.

"They beat us all over our bodies.
We were completely black from the beating. They beat us with everything:
cables, belts and wooden sticks," she added. "(Al-Baghdadi) hit me
(with a) garden hose and (a) belt. Then he slapped my face and my nose
bled," she said.

As for her relationship with Mueller,
Zeinat says that "she was a friend, she was like a sister to me." The
two were kept together inside a jail for several weeks, fed little, and moved
around to different houses. Mueller, who was taken hostage in Syria in 2013
while doing humanitarian work, shared with Zeinat that she had been raped by
al-Baghdadi.

"When Kayla came back to us (after
being taken to see al-Baghdadi), we asked her, 'Why are you crying?' And Kayla
told us al-Baghdadi said: 'I am going to marry you by force and you are going
to be my wife. If you refuse, I will kill you.'

"Kayla told me specifically ... 'Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi raped me.'
(She said he raped her) four times," the Yazidi girl added. Zeinat tried
to persuade Mueller to escape, but the American said it would be too dangerous.

"When I heard what Kayla told me,
I wanted to escape. I told Kayla to escape with me, but Kayla refused. She told
me about the American journalist who was beheaded, and she said, 'If I escape,
they will behead me,'" she continued.

"The first time I told her I would
escape, she said, 'Don't run away. If they catch you, they will surely kill
you.' But I told her, 'No. I saw what Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did to you. I saw
how you suffered. I saw how much pain you were in. I will escape whatever way I
can.'"

Zeinat and another friend finally
managed to escape one night, and eventually reached a small village despite
being shot at by IS fighters. "He murdered people. He forced people to
convert. He raped girls. He killed families, separating mothers from their
children," Zeinat said of the IS leader. "I want the world to know
how evil he is."

Mueller, however, allegedly died in an airstrike
that IS says was carried out by Jordan in Syria. In February hundreds of
mourners in Arizona, where Mueller was from, paid tribute to the Christian aid
worker, lighting candles in her memory.